CNN's Belief Blog posted a commentary on Wednesday with the headline "Muslims Should Stop Apologizing for 9-11." The author was Aman Ali, a stand-up comedian and "co-creator of 30 Mosques in 30 Days, a Ramadan road trip across America." They should have called it "30 Networks in 30 Days." This publicity idea has been featured in the last two weeks on BBC, Al-Jazeera, and the PBS NewsHour.
The issue here is that how often in America do regular non-Islamic Americans demand every Muslim needs to apologize? Haven't we been pounded with guilt trips on this matter for ten years now? Ali only says he's sick of people asking about his feelings.
As a Muslim, I’m sick of people asking me how I feel about 9/11. What do you want me to say, seriously?
Do you want me to say, “It was a great plan, mwahahaha!” before I fly off on a magic carpet?
I was born and raised in this country and was just as shocked as everyone else to learn there were people on this earth so vile as to commit such a horrific attack - or to even think about doing it.
But I didn’t do it. Neither did 99.999999999 percent of the roughly 1.5 billion people in the world who also call themselves Muslims. So why should I or any other Muslim apologize for what happened?
Nickleback [sic] is planning on releasing another album. Should I ask white people to apologize for that?
It's certainly not fair to assume every Muslim supported the 9-11 terror attacks, just as it is not fair to assume every Catholic supports child abuse by priests (or that every priest is an abuser). But some might not characterize groups like CAIR as "mainstream" when they've had ties to terror funders.
Why are mainstream American Islamic groups like the Islamic Society of North America, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim Public Affairs Council still condemning the attacks and just about any other act of terrorism that pops up in the news?
Weren’t we clear before how we feel about terrorism? If people didn’t understand us for the past 10 years, what makes Muslims think they’re going to understand us now?
If I have to explain 10 times to my little brother how to operate the toaster in my apartment, that’s not my fault because of inadequate messaging. It’s my brother’s fault that he’s dumb.
It’s ridiculous for Muslims to continuously condemn and apologize for stuff when every religion has their fair share of crazies.
